EVE General Discussion

I was into the CEO page the other day and noticed a system where officers can create a corp wide ballot for voting. It seemed like a cool idea, are there any corps who use that option?

Also shares, anyone ever been in a corp that issues shares to all members?

These both seem like great ways for a new corp to distinguish itself and to give members the feeling that they are part of something and not just tax income.

You will be a great leader of men some day Korg! A Nelson, Alexander or Wellington for New Eden!

That would imply that corps are a democracy. Which they are not.

I googled "Bad Bobby's wonderful Titans-4U racket." and all I got was a hit for this thread! Google is just amazing.

If America is any indication, the corp would end up in massive debt because nobody wants to pay taxes, the leadership would be made up exclusively of pathological liars and minorities would be persecuted, among other things.


Actually, a corporation (in the RL sense) is the only place I can think of where democracy might do some good. It would prevent golden parachutes and such at the very least. Not sure it would be better, just that it's the only situation where democracy would lead to less corruption instead of more.

Sure, and there are plenty of cooperatives that have done well. I kinda wanted to point out the hypocrisy of corporate leaders in that they believe democracy to be the "best" but when it comes to their orgs don't bother, or it's for show.

It'd cut into their golden parachutes as you say, if people could vote on executive compensation and so on. So zero interest.

Having said that I doubt a pure democratic model would work, where everyone can make decisions about everything. It should be a hybrid that, for example, lets people from the IT department make all the IT decisions and pick the most knowledgeable amongst them to be the IT head. Same for the other departments. Democracy + Meritocracy.

Yeah I get what you were saying. I just wanted to add my own thoughts.


And the reason they like a democracy in the government is that campaigns require tons of funding and in the US it's perfectly legal to bribe a politician as long as you call it a "donation".

Most of the corps (and in the long run alliances) in EvE are democratic in the sense that whoever in charge have to deliver or the members will just leave. Sometimes one and one or in pairs, but sometimes a large part will act together, take whatever they want (and have access to) and setup a new Corp.

EvE differs a lot from RL in the case that leaving a "bad" corp and joining another (or set up a new one) doesn't involve putting your livelihood on the line.

I think it's good that CCP has placed some tools in place that allows for a fully in-game handling of corp activities.

But I think that the majority of corporate planning, discussions and decisions are made using out-of-game tools like external forums (or in some cases over a couple of pints at a nearby pub/bar).

It doesn't matter that much for a run-of-a-mill mission running/mining corp in high sec, where the biggest danger is the occasional war dec and the reaction time can be quite long. But null sec is another cup of tea. There have been attempts in the past to run big alliances democratically, but they tend to crumble when faced with external pressure.

Agreeing to have a meeting in a weeks time to appoint FC A or FC B for the home defense duties and another meeting down the line to decide whether or not to commit the super capital fleet just doesn't work when the enemy fleet is burning your space NOW.

Sure. But shares can be traded freely.

So if your corp gives out shares to its members, there's nothing stopping one person from amassing 51% and owning the corp. Unless you keep 51% yourself, and then you might as well just not hand out shares since your members can never actually win a vote.

http://community.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1378711